Yimmu
'General information' Yimmu is the most widespread language throughout eastern Calaveigjia and is indigenous to the Mansadr region. Its most populous dialect is called "Udu" and is spoken in the upstream portion of the Amanapura and Tanchi alluvial plains. Another dialect, Maglaiyam, is spoken in Pidjupti and the western foothills. Tala, the third dialect, is spoken in Kina. Yimmu is one of the two languages in the east Calaveigjian language group, the other being Cuoralam which is spoken in Panjur. The east Calaveigjian language groups is one of the three language groups of Calaveigjia and, although no origins have been confirmed, connections to Bantu, Dravidian, and Austronesian languages have been made. The other two groups are the Balsurati and Chodan language groups. The Balsurati language group is almost definitely African in origin with many connections to Bantu languages while the origins of the Chodan are unknown. The following is a description that mainly focuses on the Udu dialect of Yimmu. 'Phonology' Yimmu has very little consonant clusters and words can thus be said with efficiency. When consonant clusters do exist, they usually consist of an two approximate or nasal consonant paired together. Sometimes one approximate or nasal consonant is paired with a plosive, fricative, or affricate consonant. Consonant clusters almost never consist of plosive, fricative, or affricate consonants paired together. The most common vowel in Yimmu is "a" "are". "a" makes up approximately 50% of all vowels. After that, "eh","ee", and "oo" are the second most common consonants. "o" as in "home" is a bit less common than "eh", "ee", and "oo". "ih" as in "him" and "ae" as in "as" are very uncommon and only occur in a few words. The following picture depicts a typed 'Morphology' 'Verbs' Verbs conjugate for tense, person, number, and aspect in a string of three morphemes that come after the head of the verb. "Ne kamalenu" means "I run" Kamalenu consists of "kamal", which means "run", "e", a morpheme signifying present tense, "n", a morpheme signifying a first person singular subject, and "u", a morpheme signifying simple aspect. If you separate the verb into its individual morphemes, it would be kamal-e-n-u or (base)(tense)(person/number)(aspect) There are 3 tenses: past = kamal-A-nu present = kamal-E-nu future = kamal-I-nu There are 6 combinations of person and number: 1st singular = kamale-N-u 2nd singular = kamale-M-u 3rd singular = kamale-L-u 1st plural = kamale-D-u 2nd plural = kamale-J-u 3rd plural = kamale-V-u There are four aspects: simple = kamalel-U progressive = kamalel-A perfect = kamalel-I perfect progressive = kamalel-ATU There are 5 moods in Yimmu: Subjunctive = tekamalenu Conditional = pakamalenu Imperative = chakamalenu Interrogative = rikamalenu Inferential = mekamalenu For example: "Ma rikamaledatu?" would mean "Will you all have been running?" 'Nouns' Nouns decline for specificity, case, and number. The morpheme for specificity comes before the base. "jamu" means "the cat" "ejamu" means "a cat" or "any cat" "ajamu" means "all cats" There are 8 combinations of case and number singular nominative = jamu singular accusative = jama singular prepositional = jami singular dative = jame plural nominative = jamalu plural accusative = jamala plural prepositional = jamilu plural dative = jamelu For example: "ajamalu" would be the accusative form of "all cats" 'Morphology Charts' Screen Shot 2014-07-21 at 9.45.38 AM.png|These are the verb conjugations for aspect, tense, number, and person. The rows delineate combinations of aspect and tense. The columns stand for combinations of number and voice Screen Shot 2014-07-21 at 9.45.03 AM.png|These are the noun declensions for number and case. For example: "abadjalu" is the dative form of "any boy" Screen Shot 2014-07-21 at 9.44.06 AM.png|These are the 1st and 2nd person pronouns. Screen Shot 2014-07-21 at 9.43.07 AM.png|These are the 3rd person pronouns. They are inflected with both their own case AND the case of the noun that they represent. In the first column, the first letter of the 2 letter combination signifies the case of the noun that the pronoun represents. N means nominative, A means accusative, P means prepositional, and D means dative. The 2nd letter in the combination is the actual case of the pronoun. For example, if the object of the sentence was a pronoun that represented subject of the sentence (e.g. "It banged ITSELF"), the correct pronoun would be "yalu" Screen Shot 2014-07-21 at 9.45.20 AM.png|These are the adverbial declensions for tense. For example: "Badja chalu" means " the boy who was good". "Badja chala" means "the good boy". "Badja chali" means "the boy who will be good" Screen Shot 2014-07-21 at 9.44.38 AM.png|These are the different suffixes for conjunctions. The rows portray what type of words the conjunction connects. The columns depict whether the conjunction connects just the head of the phrase or the whole phrase. For example: "Badja ti Bada chala" means "The good boy and girl". "Badja chaida tadi Bada chala" means "The bad boy and the good girl" Screen Shot 2014-07-21 at 9.44.20 AM.png|These are the question words. They are inflected for case. There are no other question words besides these so in order to say "when did that happen?", you would ask "that happened during what". In order to say "where did that happen?", you would say "that happened at what?" Syntax General Layout: SOV Noun phrase: ((noun)postposition)(determiner(noun))((adjective)adverb) Verb phrase: (((noun)postposition)((verb)adverb)) Notes Note: Phrase transitioners Between the subject phrase and object phrase, there is the phrase transitioner, "ya" (e.g. "I scratched it" would be "I ya it scratched" or "Ne ya yelu charanu") If there is only a pronoun in the subject, it can be informally eliminated from the sentence. (e.g. you could say "ya yelu charenu"). This phrase transitioner is only present when the verb has an object. (e.g. a sentence like "I ran" would not have "ya"). There is also the phrase transitioner, "ga", in front of the indirect object (e.g. I gave it a cookie" would be "I ya a cookie ga it gave" or Ne ya epuba ga yelu daiwenu). There is also a phrase transitioner, "sa" that acts as a relative pronoun. (e.g. "The dog that bites" would be "Dog sa bites" or "Pangu sa bahevu"). The last phrase transitioner, "ja" turns a sentence into a noun. (e.g. If you wanted to say that you hated the fact that bob ran away, you would say "I ya ja bob away ran hate" or "Ne ya ja bob ene aram kamalevu kagenu") Note: Word type transition inflections Syntax Diagram This link will bring you to a syntactic tree of a completely blown out Yimmu sentence. Refer to the list below for help with abbreviations NN = noun PP = postposition PPP = postpositional phrase NNP = noun phrase DT = determiner DTP = determiner phrase AJ = adjective AV = adverb AJP = adjective phrase VT = verb transitioner VB = verb SVP = subverb phrase PT = subposition transitioner SPP = subposition phrase SBS = subject section SBC = subject ET = entity transitioner ETP = entity transitioner phrase OBS = object section IT = indirect object transitioner IOP = indirect object phrase VBP = verb phrase VS = verb section PDC = predicate S = sentence Lexicon 'Example text' Regular English: "When will the cats be running to the store and scratching the little girls? Oh my! They have been giving me my candy!" English words in Yimmu Grammar: "Cats store to will be running and girls little scratching during what? Oh my! They my candy me have been giving!" Yimmu: Jamalu duki ai kamaliva chada ya balala nina chariva ul awta? Kari! Relu na ene ud chachi ga one tamevatu! 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